I am looking for well known items that were invented by mistake i.e. Corn Flakes, Post It Notes and the Slinky

Question

I remember seeing on TV the history of several things that were invented or discovered by mistake. I just can't remember very many. I am particularly interested in things that were invented for a specific purpose but ended up being used and marketed a completely different way.

Can anybody help?

Answer 1

The Vulcanization process - Charles Goodyear.

Microwave ovens. Acrylic. Vaseline. Viagra.

Answer 2

I would reccomend buying the book, "Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things" by Charles Panati.  It's very interesting and contains origins of everything from glow in the dark toys to holidays.  And most of the things in there were not invented for the purpose they turned out to be used for.  

Here is a link if you are interested:

http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Orig...

Answer 3

Percy Lebaron Spencer -Micro Wave

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen -X-rays

Both by mistake

Answer 4

LSD

Answer 5

plastic

Answer 6

prell shampoo was supposed to be a carpet cleaner

Answer 7

chocolate chip cookies!

ruth wakefield was making chocolate cookies when she ran out of cocoa powder. she put in chunks of unsweetened chocolate thinking it would make the cookie a chocolate cookie, instead, it made the worlds first chocolate chip cookie=] (yum!)

Answer 8

plastic, chocolate, silly putty

:D

hahaha

and cheese, too. the first kind they made was goat cheese, and they were trying to store it but it hardened and fermented, and i guess someone ate some and now it's called cheese. ahah. 6th grade history, maannn that was a long time agoo. :)

Answer 9

the potato chip

(the guy accidently sliced the potato too thinkly, and i turned crisp),

the waffle cone

(at a fair, there was a waffle stand and an ice cream stand next to each other, the ice cream stand ran out of cups, so they made a cone out of a waffle)

ciao!

Answer 10

alpo dog food was actually created for humans, but they decided it didn't look good to people and changed some things and started selling it as dog food

Answer 11

Penicillin

Answer 12

Graham crackers were invented I believe in the 1800s by  Reverend S. Graham. He was trying to create a dietary product intended on staving off sexual urges. Haha

Answer 13

Chocolate -

Scientists believe Aztecs were trying to make a beer-like drink when they created chocolate more than 3,000 years ago.

Potato Chips -

In the summer of 1853, Native American George Crum was employed as a chef at an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. One dinner guest found Crum's French fries too thick for his liking and rejected the order. Crum decided to rile the guest by producing fries too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork. The plan backfired. The guest was ecstatic over the browned, paper-thin potatoes, and other diners began requesting Crum's potato chips.

Piggy Bank -

In Old English (around the 15th century) there was a word "pygg" which referred to a type of orange clay. People made all kinds of useful objects out of clay, including dishes and jars to hold spare change. Around the 18th century, the word "pygg" now sounded the same as the word for the animal "pig". An unknown person(s) thought to shape a  "pygg" jar, to look just like a real "pig". Perhaps an order came in for a "pygg" jar and the potter misunderstood.

Silly Putty -

The history of silly putty is quite amusing. In 1943 James Wright, an engineer, was attempting to create a synthetic rubber. He was unable to achieve the properties he was looking for and put his creation (later to be called silly putty) on the shelf as a failure. A few years later, a salesman for the Dow Corning Corporation was using the putty to entertain some customers. One of his customers became intrigued with the putty and saw that it had potential as a new toy. In 1957, after being endorsed on the "Howdy Doody Show", silly putty became a toy fad. Recently new uses such as a grip strengthener and as an art medium have been developed. Silly putt even went into space on the Apollo 8 mission.

Cheese -

A legendary story has it that cheese was 'discovered' by an unknown Arab nomad. He is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he stopped to quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse. The nomad, unconcerned with technical details, found the whey drinkable and the curds edible.

Answer 14

Well, I read in Reader's Digest that the potato chip was invented when an unsatisfied customer argued his french fries were too thick.  The cook too them back, and purposely cut the potatoes very thin.

Not really an accident, but it's interesting.